Dedicated to getting to the truth of things. A Christian since 1984. (Just a Christian, without pigeon-holing into a denomination.) I like people to be free to ask their questions about Christianity and the church. I like to approach faith questions with my brain switched on. A qualified classicist and historian.
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And I don't look like James Garner. Enough about me already.

Friday, 6 April 2018

What does Luke reveal about himself in Luke-Acts?

It’s a fascinating thing to read
people’s autobiographical revelations about themselves, and to find out what interesting
times they have seen as eyewitnesses. That’s of special interest when it comes
to the stories of eyewitnesses of the early church. In passing in his
eyewitness account, New Testament author Luke gives us glimpses of his life. He
makes appearances in the action in the Book of Acts (a history of the early
church).

His name has always been associated
with this book as its author as far back as anyone knows. Luke was sufficiently
known in close-knit circles of co-religionists that people in those circles
would know that he was a writer, and very likely some in these circles read his
gospel. If scholars are right that literacy levels were low in Christian
communities, Luke’s name would be in only a small pool or writers, and the risk
of mis-identification would be low in his lifetime.

Anyway, here is a brief summary of
what Luke reveals about himself (not intended to be comprehensive), with some of
his own words to give a flavour of it.

·Luke was
active in the middle of the first century AD, writing about events of that
period.

·He was
educated (he could read and write Greek quite well).

·He
was part of circles that included literate co-religionists (e.g. Paul, and
others who could write Paul’s letters when he dictated them, and others who
could read them to churches). An impression of the type of group we might
envisage is in 2 Timothy 4: “Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with
you, for he is very useful to me for ministry. Tychicus I have sent to Ephesus.
When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the
books, and above all the parchments.”

·He
wrote a Gospel and Acts: “it seemed good to me also, having followed all things
closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you”; He introduces
his second book, Acts, this way: “In the first book… I have dealt with all that
Jesus began to do and teach…”

·He
was writing for someone called Theophilus, but for a wider circle too, given
that his books were more widely circulated.

·He
personally regarded Mark (and Matthew if he read it) as authorised normative
texts for the church, given that he uses and adapts so much of it, and refers
to it as material sourced from eyewitnesses and servants of the word”.

·He
was a believer in Jesus, the main subject of his writing, and he was committed
to supporting the church, his main subject in Acts.

·He
was fascinated by legal proceedings as a subject to write about in more detail
than other things.

PEOPLE HE KNEW

·He
was a trusted member of a travelling group of missionaries in the
Jesus-movement.

·He
was widely travelled around Mediterranean regions, including Jerusalem and
Rome: “at
Jerusalem, the brothers and sisters received us warmly”; “And
so we came to Rome”.

·As
part of the travelling group, he was known among close-knit circles of
co-religionists in Philippi, Troas, Miletus, Tyre, Ptolemais, Caesarea, Sidon,
Puteoli, as well as Jerusalem and Rome (see Acts 16-28).

·Luke
knew the apostle Paul personally, and also met James and other leaders of the
Jerusalem church, the mother church of Christianity: “at Jerusalem… Paul and the
rest of us went to see James, and all the elders were present”.

·Luke
knew other eyewitnesses of Jesus “those who from the beginning were
eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them [material for
writing gospels] to us”

·They
evangelised women as well as men: “We
sat down and began to speak to the women”.

TRAVEL

·His
location is Troas, when Luke first reveals that he has joined up with the
travelling missionaries (Acts 16:8-10).

·Luke
was a frequent traveller by sea with his fellow missionaries.

·He
was strong enough to get from shipwreck to shore by improvised means: “He [the centurion] ordered
those who could swim to jump overboard first and get to land. The rest
were to get there on planks or on other pieces of the ship. In this way
everyone reached land safely.”

·His
location is Rome, when Luke ceases to reveal where he is present (Acts 28:16).

FELLOWSHIP

·He
was keen on church unity.

·Luke,
with the other missionaries, would seek Christian company on their travels,
meeting up with both men and women. For example:

o“We
sought out the disciples there and stayed with them seven days”

o“we
greeted the brothers and sisters“

o“at
Jerusalem, the brothers and sisters received us warmly”

o“we
found some brothers and sisters who invited us to spend a week with them”

STATUSHe was willing to be part of the unusually class-defying socially-mixed world of Christian communities, from the wealthier circumstances of the house of a cloth dealer where a room could maybe pack in 120 people at a squeeze; to the not-wealthy densely populated urban setting of a third storey flat (the second floor to English readers) where a meeting could squeeze in maybe up to 40 people in a room so packed that people are sat on the window-sill.

RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES

·Luke
kept some Jewish observances and knew about the Jewish calendar:

o“On
the Sabbath we went… where we expected to find a place of prayer”

o“by
now it was after the Day of Atonement”

·He
also kept some Christian observances: “On
the first day of the week we came together to break bread”.

·He
was keen on prayer: “on
the beach we knelt to pray”.

SUPERNATURAL

·As was normal writers of his times, Luke
believed in the supernatural. He believed in receiving guidance from God: “we got
ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to
preach the gospel to them.”

·He
presents himself as a witness to, or believer in, the supernatural:

o“Paul
had seen the vision”

o“we
were met by a female slave who had a spirit by which she predicted the
future”

o“we…
stayed at the house of Philip the evangelist, one of the Seven. He had four
unmarried daughters who prophesied.”

o“a
prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. Coming over to us… said, “The Holy
Spirit says…”

o“we
came together to break bread… [the
young man] fell to the ground from the third story and was picked up
dead. Paul went down, threw himself on the young man and put his arms
around him. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “He’s alive!” Then he went
upstairs again and broke bread and ate.”

These are the things that Luke reveals
most directly about himself. They go some way to telling us what kind of person
he was, and what he saw in the early church. Enough has been said above to give
a flavour of what Luke reveals autobiographically about himself.